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This was a profoundly depressing thread to read -- as someone with an economics PhD who was not advised to do any of these things, I can see where the author is coming from if your overarching goal is to go to a 'top program', but the piece highlights structural issues in econ. https://twitter.com/_AlvinChristian/status/1290274152360812546
. @graykimbrough has a good thread that comes at two key points from an applied micro standpoint, both of which I completely agree with: https://twitter.com/graykimbrough/status/1290721490875359232?s=20
I also completely agree with this: https://twitter.com/graykimbrough/status/1290716905150517248?s=20
Why do people want to go to top programs? The better question may be: what do people get out of top programs? Beyond prestige, I think this is access to positions once students are on the job market and the ability to influence top policy-makers, govts, etc.
The problem is that the students graduating from these programs are likely to have been funneled into using particular methodologies, or relying on particular theories, that don't describe the world as it is. This is really obvious to me coming from a PE-Macro side of things.
"What's wrong with economics?" is often a straw man argument, but it's a problem if economists with backgrounds outside of the top schools have limited access to policy-makers. Relative access to policy-makers can be contested; fantastic think tanks like @rooseveltinst exist.
But it is a problem if people working on macro and monetary issues are excluded from positions in that field because they didn't use a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model in their job market paper: https://twitter.com/Kumar_EconIneq/status/1290486739249664003?s=20
It is a problem if papers that don't have graphs in them are disputed as 'not being economics'. (Something I've heard more than once.)
It is a problem if professors teaching economics to undergrads at elite institutions are all teaching the same inaccurate models and methods using one of four expensive bad textbooks.
There are alternatives to this process: heterodox econ programs like @UMassEcon and @NSSRNews and political economy programs like @SOASEconomics and @SPERIshefuni and @Usyd_ssps are excellent; masters programs like @JJayEcon and @UMASSBostonEcon also exist.
There are others, too, that delve into alternative theories, methods, and so on. I wouldn't trade my grad student experience, but my program's well-intended drift toward econometrics over other methods to make students more acceptable to the mainstream has its own problems.
The structural debt the thread author is describing, the harassment and exploitation others have described in pre-doc experiences on here, and the problems of further concentrating those theory/method tendencies described above bode ill for the field. https://twitter.com/EconPreDocAnon/status/1282289253515505664?s=20
As long as a few top programs maintain this structural power within the discipline, the scope of the work that economists (who are recognized as a economists by those who maintain levers of power) perform, the thought that economists bring to the table will always be limited.
And as long as this is the case, Janet Yellen and Christine Laguarde's pleas for more women and under-represented groups to come work in policy in central banking will be missing the full scope of the problem in economics & policy at the highest levels. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/02/25/janet-yellen-2/
This is not to beat up on the OP! @_AlvinChristian has written an amazing resource here, which has a lot of great advice, especially re: application materials, talking to letter writers etc. But if you haven't taken real analysis you can still go to econ grad school.
Just to add to this, there are great programs west of the Mississippi, too, like UMKC, Colorado State, and the University of Utah, to name just a few! https://twitter.com/NakedKeynes/status/1290734043018010631?s=20
Someone should write out a comprehensive thread of all such programs, US and beyond, that deal in heterodox economics, political economy, economic geography, and beyond...
